Exquisite: The First Hunger Games (SYOT)
by Echo and Erato
Summary: "The 'Victor' never really wins, does he?" President Marcus Snow lost his wife and daughters to the rebels. If it takes a yearly blood toll to make the districts pay, he will give them a yearly blood toll, and take the most exquisite thing they have: their children.


My dear-

If you have never felt mind-crushing, spirit-breaking, life-ruining despair, you won't understand why I did what I did.

If you have not loved someone with a love more powerful than any army, any kind of force, and then lost them, you will see nothing in me but evil.

If there is no person you would die for a thousand times and a thousand times more, nobody you would give the world for, you will feel nothing but hate for me. I deserve this. I deserve nothing less.

If you never knew the girl I loved, you will never know why losing her was like losing everything. In a way, for me at least, it was.

Read my account. Then, continue to hate me if you will. I do, certainly. I deserve nothing but hate. I, after all, started the Hunger Games. And my son continued them, because he grew up with a father who showed him nothing else.

Please, Yukiko. Believe me. I never meant any of this. I just wanted you back.

I thought that if I ended the damned war, you might come home, wherever you were.

-Eternally yours,

Marcus Snow

* * *

The war was going on, heinous as ever, but it seemed as if it would never reach us. Our beloved Capitol was happy in the newing summer. The roses were blooming, particularly Cory's favorites, the big white ones. You remember? He would pluck one and toddle over to us- _Look, look, wose!- _and smile bigger than the moon. Julie liked the little red ones. We called them Snow White and Rose Red, though Cory complained about being a 'gerl.' Amy just sat on your lap and smiled. Bless the triplets.

I had you, my darling, and we had Coriolanus and Juliana and Amelia, only a year old then. I loved you all. I knew I always would. We would stop the rebels. We would fix Panem. We would walk through the golden sands and fields of our country, and make of it a new land. We were going to do this together, and there was no reason to believe otherwise. We would live in our shining city, and after our inevitable victory, I would kindly say to the defeated and groveling leaders: _No, do not bow to us, you are not below us. We are equals. We shall prosper as a family and as a nation._ And behold, they would weep for gratitude, and, smiling, I would lead them through the streets, always with you at my side. They would know they could trust us. You, after all, came from District Thirteen, head of the rebels. How could they not love you as I did? When you joined me, it was not a betrayal, but only love.

I had been horribly, grievously mistaken: I thought they believed in love.

The day of our victory was nearing. Their troops had been forced back, and a celebration was necessary. Surely the killing and the war was almost over! There was a beautiful banquet overlooking the giant willow tree, the sun shone, and I could have wept for happiness. Praise the heavens, the fighting is nearly done. No more deaths. No more hatred. Just you, Cory, Julie, Amy, and me, together for eternity.

You raised your glass to mine, and then into the air. "A toast!" you said. "A toast to a bright future!" In that moment, I loved you more than ever. You were perfect and clever and beautiful and mine.

A smoldering aircraft rounded the willow. It had the mark of District Thirteen.

You dropped your glass, and it shattered and scared the children. Julie and Amy clung to me. Cory hid under the table.

"It's all right," you said uncertainly. "They must see there are children here. They wouldn't hurt us."

My mouth had gone dry. Was this our end? Would we die by one little bomber plane who had evaded our snipers? The rebels couldn't hurt babies, could they? That was what they accused us of. How were they any more righteous?

"Please," you called to the whirring plane. "We won't shoot you down. Just land, and we promise you won't be harmed."

One word buzzed out over the static-filled comm. "Traitor!"

Everything dissolved into fire and noise and chaos.

I remember stumbling through the wreckage of our luncheon table. Dust filled the air, and blood spattered from my mouth each time I took a breath. My lung had been punctured, and it hurt almost too much to move, but I knew I needed to find something. What was it? What was I doing?

I saw a single rose petal, almost buried under soot. It was white but stained red. Then I remembered that Cory had been holding that fateful flower. I remembered you and the triplets, but couldn't see you. _Lord no. Yukiko, please. Where are you? Yukiko! _I tried to shout for you, but all that came out were hacking coughs. My vision filled with spots.

One feeble cry came from under a marble slab and shattered my reverie. "Papa!"

_Cory,_ I tried to say. I wheezed and fell over, pawing through the dust. _Cory._

"Papa!"

_Please, Yukiko, help me find the children._

"Papa!"

_Please..._

"Pa?"

_Somebody..._

The last thing I saw before darkness was your exquisite hand reaching through the haze. I grasped it. It was whiter and colder than the marble it lay on. Hearing Cory's fading whimpers, I gave up hope and pressed it to my lips. "I'm so sorry," I mumbled. Then there was nothing.

* * *

I awoke in a hospital bed. There was one bed beside me. Cory was in it. Where were you and Julie and Amy?

An attendant hurried to my side. "You're awake, President Snow?"

"Water," I rasped.

Somebody gave me a glass, and I choked it down, chest aching but not burning. My lungs had apparently been healed. How long had I been asleep?

"You've been unconscious for three days, sir," the man said, as if reading my mind. "Your son is still unconscious. We don't know-" He stopped and gestured helplessly. Machines above Cory's bed emitted faltering beeps that seemed to grow slower by the minute.

"Where are Yukiko and Juliana and Amelia?" I asked.

There was no answer.

"Where?" I must have already known, but I couldn't make myself believe it.

"They're dead, sir. I'm so sorry." He did look sorry. But he didn't look devastated. How could he not be stricken with terror? Why didn't he seem to know that the world had surely ended?

I rose from the bed, ignoring the attendant's frantic protests that I wasn't well enough yet, and suppressing my impossibly deep sorrow.

"Where is the man who killed them?" I inquired. I think I smiled. I wanted to hurt him until he died, or forever. It actually gave me pleasure to think of him screaming for mercy, because he hadn't given my family mercy.

"In cell two hundred," was the apprehensive answer.

"Take him out to the willow tree," I commanded. With an effort that was almost agony, I made myself remember that you wouldn't have hurt him. My Yukiko wouldn't have tortured him. That left only one option. "Bring a rope. And a cameraman."

The boy was younger than I'd expected, probably twenty or so. He was heavily scarred, his eyes wide and full of fear, fear that formerly would have garnered him pity. Now I felt nothing for him. He'd taken everything I had. He'd taken _you._

"Please," he blubbered. "You can't- I have a fiance, I have a family, please-"

"I had a family too," I said. My voice was almost light. "You didn't care. Why should I care?"

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, please-"

"Shhhh," I whispered. The cameraman leaned closer to catch every word and distribute them around Panem. "It'll be over soon."

Fighting against the shooting pains in my chest, I relocked his cuffed hands behind his back. "You were from District Thirteen, right?" I asked, quickly knotting the rope I'd been given into a noose. I'd shown Amy how to tie a noose the other day. How could I have done that? Had the last thing she'd remembered of me been a way to kill?

"Y-yes," the gap toothed boy sobbed. "But I was born in D-District Twelve. My family is watching from there- please-"

"Whatever you soot-covered little fiends say before you die, say it now," I said, dropping my semi-friendly tone. I thrust the noose over his freckled head and shoved him into the tree. "Hang him," I said, and turned. As I walked back to the mansion, I heard his choked screams, then silence.

* * *

I won the war. I bombed District Thirteen. I buried my wife and daughters. It felt like it happened all at once, in one elongated, bitter moment. Cory cried for his mother in the nights, and I couldn't soothe him. How could I tell him what had happened? I couldn't say his mommy was never coming back. I didn't want to tell myself.

Looking out over the remnants of a nation, I felt nothing except hatred. A wild roar filled my mind for revenge, for punishment, to make them all pay. All I had left was Cory, a child, which gave me the idea of the perfect payment. Take the children. Kill them. Let the districts feel the horror of losing their families. Whatever they had left, destroy it. Make them hunger for justice that would never come.

In penance, I left one small allotment. Twenty four children, a boy and girl from each remaining district, would fight to the death- but one would live. One, like my Cory. One child would survive and be celebrated, a 'Victor.' Only I would know what they then would: There is no true victor in the midst of death.

This mad celebration of gore was called the Hunger Games.

I'm sorry, Yukiko. You were my lost eternity, so I made them lose theirs.

Let them lose what is most exquisite to them.

The 'victor' never really wins, does he?


End file.
